Free All in the Game by Barbara Boswell Page B

neck.
    Shannen shivered, though it was pure heat streaking through her. She quickly stepped away from him, out of touching range.
    â€œAnd don’t you dare say I expect you to come after me and…and grab me. Because I don’t!”
    â€œSo adamant.” He laughed. “I’m tempted to see what would happen if I did.”
    â€œThere’s been enough temptation here tonight,” scolded Shannen. “And I’m ashamed of myself for even considering a bite of that food.”
    She started walking back to the path. He followed her, placing his hand on the small of her back.
    â€œIt was extremely ethical of you not to eat that food, Shannen.” His voice was thoughtful. “I bet any of the others would’ve bolted it down without a single qualm.”
    â€œLauren wouldn’t’ve touched it.” Shannen stopped in her tracks so quickly he almost crashed into her. “You’d better not go any farther. If someone sees you—”
    â€œI’ll turn around when we see the camp. And here, Shannen, don’t forget this.” He pressed the tube of ointment into her hand.
    â€œThis is cheating, too, Tynan.” She dropped it, and it would’ve hit the sand if Ty, anticipating her reaction, hadn’t caught it first.
    â€œShare it with Lauren and Cortnee. I’m sure they have blisters,” said Ty. “Then you won’t have any unfair advantage. Medicine falls into a different category than food. And I’m not using subterfuge—or weaselly words.”
    â€œThey do have blisters, their hands are as bad as mine,” Shannen admitted. “I think Cortnee’s are even worse.”
    â€œBe sure that the three of you hold your hands up tomorrow so we can film them. We’ll go in for some vivid close-ups.” He smiled slightly. “The viewing audience loves stuff like that, the ever-popular gross-out scenes.”
    â€œThen they would’ve loved seeing Konrad barehandedly massacre that fish, but you didn’t film it,” she reminded him.
    â€œTrue. I decided that Konrad and the murdered fish would be ideal for a show like The World’s Truly Disgusting Videos but not for Victorious. ”
    â€œClark Garrett would disagree. But I won’t tell him about the fabulously nauseating footage he missed because you played censor.”
    â€œI felt I must. After all, we Howes are certainly the arbiters of good taste, among other things, are we not?” Ty was droll.
    Or cynical. Or ashamed and quick to make a joke about his family’s wretched reputation before anyone else did?
    â€œDid you think I was going to toss off some Howe-related barb?” Shannen blurted her thought aloud.
    She felt a pang of guilt. After all, she’d been quick to throw in the now-legendary statement made by his father when the news broke about the call girl ring being run out of Congressman Howe’s office. As if that weren’t scandalous enough, the congressman couldn’t even plead ignorance to it all because he was getting a piece of the action himself, both financially and physically.
    â€œI wouldn’t blame you, I make them myself,” Ty said laconically. “My family’s antics were so outrageous, they turned themselves into cartoons who can only be comprehended by lampooning them. I wouldn’t be surprised if the pope himself has told a Howe joke or two.”
    Shannen remembered how proudly Tynan had talked about his family nine years ago, before the Howes’ infamous fall from grace. His father, the venerable congressman; his brother, the brilliant accounting executive who’d made his company stock a Wall Street darling. And the other Howes, seemingly equally gifted and talented, who’d turned out to be equally conniving and corrupt.
    But back then the Howes had sounded like superbeingsto her, so very far removed from the Cullens, who eked out a livelihood from their West Falls